Love Eternal Review: A Memory of Defeat | The Gamerheads Podcast

Jake
1 minute ago
2 min read

A woman runs in a pink outfit on a dark street. Large red figure and trees in the background. Text reads: Love Eternal. Mood is tense.

Platform reviewed: Nintendo Switch

Price: $9.99

Love Eternal is a psychological platformer that mixes mind-bending artwork and animations, with challenging and sometimes frustrating levels. At times, it feels like I’m forgetting to take a breath between safe spots. In the levels I can jump and reverse gravity to stick to platform ceilings. I can only flip gravity once before I need to touch a platform to use it again., There are items throughout the levels that allow me to flip gravity again while I am falling, allowing me to further traverse the levels as well as dodging spikes and lasers.

8-bit game scene with a character navigating a cavern filled with red orbs and black spikes. Blue stone walls and a gridded path.

Although Love Eternal wants the player to connect with the story and uncover the mystery surrounding the main character, Maya, and her struggles through the gothic and surreal castle she finds herself in, I found it difficult to connect with the story and the pace at which events unfold. I think my main problem was not that the game was too difficult. I have definitely played these types of games before with Celeste being a stand out and I definitely see some inspiration from games like it. More than that, the speed in which Maya flips and falls through each screen was not as snappy as I had hoped. If I’m more than a millimeter off from my target it usually means I would need to start over. This is usually fine but I found that I could not adjust to the precise directions as quickly as I wanted to.

Cave scene with a large statue of a child and dog. Equipment and cables on the ground. Gloomy ambiance with gray tones.

One small but useful feature I would have liked to see is a visual indicator showing when I could flip gravity. I found it difficult to tell when I had the ability to flip gravity again. Even if Maya's hair changed colour or something to indicate that I had the ability to flip again would have been very helpful. Small things like this could have made the experience much more enjoyable..

There’s definitely the core of a solid game though and I was excited to see more of the story when I reached those moments, as well as some of the amazing backdrops of the levels. The artwork to this game is so well done and shouldn’t be looked over. Even with pixel art, the intricacies and attention to detail within these sets as well as characters design and animation are incredibly well done.

Dark, moody scene with silhouettes of trees, a person on a car, and another walking. Text reads: "Who are you?" White-haired figure shown.

Final Grade: C

Love Eternal is a game that will hit with certain people who enjoy these types of games where they can get through the levels the fastest or go through the entire game without dying. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people. I wanted to catch chunks of the story but it didn't give me enough to keep a steady pace to keep my interest.

Review code provided by Stride PR for Ysbryd Games